I'd love to be able to make some new friends, I have virtually no support network here. But I'm about to turn 32, and am a full-time student at a local community college, where most of the other students are either retired or just out of high school. There does seem to be single moms sort of close to my age, but most of them are in programs like nursing, or dental hygiene and I have very few overlapping classes with those types of programs. Are there any other single student moms out there who have run into this, or am I missing something???

I'd love to be able to make some new friends, I have virtually no support network here. But I'm about to turn 32, and am a full-time student at a local community college, where most of the other students are either retired or just out of high school. There does seem to be single moms sort of close to my age, but most of them are in programs like nursing, or dental hygiene and I have very few overlapping classes with those types of programs. Are there any other single student moms out there who have run into this, or am I missing something???

I didn't really connect socially with other students until grad school, when we had much smaller classes, a static cohort, and a lot of group projects. I met people I'd been in undergrad with but hadn't met because I was the elderly nerd who sat in the front of the classroom.

You might have more in common with the librarian, your faculty's admin assistant than your "OMG LIKE" labmate.

Ok, I thought about this. But as I am newish at this whole attending college thing, I've been under the impression that there's some sort of unspoken protocol that students and staff/instructors don't mix. Not the case? Because I have definitely wished that I could connect with some people I've met who weren't students, but felt awkward about it.

Just befrend who you connect with! When I was in community college I was friends with the lab tech who was a graduate but kept working at the CC while attending a University. Also, those OMG little girls might even look up to you! Not just because you're smart and actually focus of school work so you can help them learn but also because you have life experience that they do not. I was at community college a few years ago and made a few friends who were traditional students, a few friends that had kids in the daycare and a few friends who worked at the school. I'm really looking forward to getting back in school and getting a Bachelors degree after having taken a couple of years off!